Agriculture and Antiquity

Western Civilization traces its roots to Mesopotamia, one of the first places where plant domestication is believed to have occurred. Following the domestication of plants and animals (and perhaps as a result of it?), numerous settlements developed in this region. Archeological evidence suggests that the first city, Jericho, was built in the area. Another great 'first' that occurred here was the invention of writing. The great civilizations of Sumeria, Babylon, and Assyria developed in this region. The most important crop plants for all of these civilizations were (and still are in the region) wheat, barley, date, fig, olive, and grape; it is possible that each of them were domesticated from wild plants native to the region. The most advanced civilization of the region, however, arose along the banks of the Nile river...

Egyptian Civilization

• Developed various technologies associated with the culinary arts such as: ceramics, the process of baking, wine-making, food storage (pickling, drying, etc)...
• Were the first to establish exotic ornamental gardens. That is, they delilberately planned the grounds and placed plants for both ornamental and utilitarian purposes. The first records date to about 2200 BC. The image at right shows a walled garden of an official in Pharaoh's Amenhotep government. The plan is symmetrical and the central, papyrus-fringed pool is shaded by trees. Ornamental plantings were formal, orderly, small, requiring irrigation. Among the elements typical of some gardens were: pools for fish, trees bearing figs, pomegranates, and dates; grapevine-covered trellises; and beds of flowers. Other plants included roses, jasmine and myrtle.
  The gardens were primarily those of pharaohs and government officials and those that served as religious or sacred sites.
  • developed an 'artificial oasis' that provided privacy (especially for the women of the household) and intimacy
  • cool, leafy, shady gardens were mean to refresh from the intense desert sun
  • a 'human triumph over nature.' This philosophy of mastery over nature, initiated with the Egyptians, found expression in many other cultures as well and is associated with the Formalism school of Landscape Design.
• Developed many essential agricultural technologies:
  • drainage (removal of excess water) and irrigation (artificial supply of water)
  • land preparation (refined the hoe and perfected the plow)
• Lived in a setting providing the stark contrast of a fertile valley surrounded by desert. Here's a view of the fertile shores of the Nile that give way to the harsh desert in the background as it looks today and as it probably looked at the height of Egyptian Civilization.
  
  

Towards the end of Egyptian power, other cultures which would greatly influence Western Civilization were developing in a region now called Israel/Palestine/Lebanon/Jordan/Syria; this, of course, is the Judeo-Christian Development. (Click to move on to that section). Egyptian civilization eventually gave way to Hellenistic prominence (about 500 BC to 100 BC) and ultimately the Roman Empire.